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Chapter 8: Tomorrow Never Comes

Osho, Last night you explained inner stillness through the dimension of inner silence. Please explain inner stillness from some other dimension.

Stillness has many dimensions. One is silence: that is the polar opposite of sound, soundlessness. The second dimension is no movement: that is the polar opposite of movement. Mind is movement, just as mind is sound. Sound travels, mind also. Mind is in constant movement, never standing still. You cannot conceive a still mind. There exists no such thing, because when stillness is, mind is no more; when mind is, it is movement. So what is the movement of mind? Through it we can conceive the second dimension of stillness, no movement.

Outside we know what movement means: moving from one spot to another, from one place to another, from A to B. If you are at A and then move to B, movement has taken place. So outside the mind, movement means changing places in space. If there is no space, you cannot move. You need space to move outside.

Inside movement is not in space but in time. If there is no time, you cannot move inside. Time is inner space. So from one second you move to another second, from this day to another day, from here to somewhere else, in time, from now to then. Time is inner space. Analyze your mind, and you will always be moving from past to future, from future to past. Either you are moving in the memories, past memories, or you are moving into future desires. Memory or desire, past or future.

When you move from the past to the future or from the future to the past, only then do you use the present moment, just as a passage. For the mind, the present is nothing but the dividing line between past and future. For the mind, the present is not really existential. It is just a dividing line from where you can move to the past or to the future. Mind is never in the present, because in the present you cannot move.

So understand this: in the present you cannot move - then there is no time. The present is always a single moment. You are never given two moments together; only one moment is given to you. You cannot move from A to B, because only A exists; there is no B.

Understand this quality of time in the present: you are given always a single moment. Whether you are a beggar on the street or an emperor, it makes no difference. Your time wealth is the same: one moment at a time. You cannot move in it. There is no place to move, and mind exists only in movement. So mind never uses the present, it cannot use it; it goes back to the past. Then it has many points to move to. A long memory, your whole past is there.